Last week I read the book Design Thinking: The Handbook by Falk Uebernickel et al. I was surprised by how much I liked it, and by how much I agreed with much of the way the Design Thinking process is, well, designed.
Design Thinking is a way of designing by using prototyping. Marty Cagan advises that instead of detailed technical specifications (of which I have myself written several), functional prototypes should be used. Design Thinking brings this step closer to the beginning of the development process by incorporating prototyping into the actual design of products, services, or ideas. By getting the customer or client involved early in the process, and by having tangible prototypes – even in the form of simple Post-It notes – available for customers to see, touch, move around, or play with, designs can be evaluated and improved upon without the need to spend money to rework or redesign things that are already well underway in the product development process.
In other news, some friends and I went on the Tron Lightcycle Power Run ride at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom last week, and it was pretty neat! I must admit, having just read a lot about Design Thinking during the previous days, I spent a little extra time wondering about the design of the experience, and finding little details that interested me!
